Artificials
by Revolutionize
Summary: Being ugly was like being the only littlie not allowed in the sandbox.
1. Make Me Pretty, Already!

**I. Make Me Pretty, Already!**

Being ugly was like being the only littlie not allowed in the sandbox.

Or, at least, that was how Kasie Holcombe thought of it. In her case, being in this state of ugly was pretty much like that. She'd been alone, with the exception of Teague, since June when her last ugly friend turned pretty. Almost three months had passed since Celia got picked up by that special car and had the special surgery. Three months before that, Danielle. Since then, Kasie had been the only trilogy that was still ugly.

A trilogy can't have just two parts. Kasie had cried over that on countless occasions, messing up her ugly face even further. Celia and Danielle had been Kasie's friends ever since that day back in Littlie School, when they still were with the crumblies. "The best books are trilogies," Celia had said, and since then, they referred to themselves as such. The Trilogy. Now Kasie was a flop seller, when her best friends were living it up as a two-part, best-selling book series. Great.

"Don't be sad, Kase," Teague had tried to cheer up, "We're going to be pretty in two days."

Teague was Kasie's nice, not so helpful, twin brother. He'd looked like the male mirror reflection as her for as long as she could remember. Some people had teased that if he grew his hair longer, he's look _exactly _like her. His eyes were the same dull blue colour, his top lip slightly fuller than his bottom, and the same mousy brown hair. They were twin uglies, and it made Kasie sad.

"But we're still ugly now." She mumbled back to him.

"Forty-six hours." He replied simply.

"Oh, shove it."

Forty-six hours until she was beautiful.

Kasie had wanted to run to hospital and shout to them, "Make me pretty, already!" but there were two things wrong with that thought. One, they never made exceptions, and two, Kara and Garrett. Otherwise known as "Mom" and "Dad." They weren't just pretties, they were _the_ pretties. They were the ones responsible for keeping the villes in working order, and they, of all people, had expected their youngest children to follow the rules. No tricking, no nothing.

In her desperation to become pretty, Kasie had followed all of the rules to a tee. She always wore her interface ring, she'd never misused her wall screen or talked back in school, and she'd never, _never_ gone to New Pretty Town. Teague, on the other hand, had never followed the rules and he was always "misplacing" his interface ring. If anyone was going to be held back from being pretty, it was Teague.

Kasie clumped her feet up the stairs and down the hallway to her room. She frowned at the happy-looking new uglies. They were late-borns, like her, so they were just getting in on the whole ugly experience. All their friends were ugly, too, so they weren't missing anything. _Just wait until your best friends turn pretty, and you're stuck here alone_. Kasie thought, being careful to walk around their playful jumping. To the new uglies, it didn't matter what they looked like, because it just mattered, to them, at least, how much fun they were having. Kasie longed for that again, when she, Celia, and Danielle would find ways across the river.

Kasie had been the last one to join Celia and Danielle as uglies, too. But, when she got there, it was almost like it hadn't mattered that she wasn't there. They still had seen each other when Kasie was still a Littlie, and it was just even better when Kasie moved to Uglyville, too. They would trick the sensors and hang out just inside New Pretty Town, no worries or sadness ever affecting them. Being pretty was much different- especially when you're the only one who isn't.

Placing her hand on the door handle, Kasie turned it and slipped inside through the smallest opening she could manage. She hadn't faced the room, yet, closing the door with her eyes to the wood. She sighed heavily, wanting nothing more than to turn around and scream into her pillow. _Forty-six hours_. She told herself.

Kasie shook her hair out of her face and turned around, her mouth dropping open in the extremes at what she saw.

"Happy Early Birthday, Kasie!"


	2. Bubbly Perfection

To say that Danielle Benouin hadn't changed would be like saying that there was no night and day.

At first, Kasie wasn't sure who she was looking at. The Danielle that was sitting on her ugly bed was beautiful in the severe, and showed none of the familiar traits that she once had. Ugly Danielle had been, in her own way, prettier than the rest of the uglies. Her face wasn't too assymetrical, and her skin was less blemished than the rest. This Danielle was like the angel of pretties.

Her pale, perfect pretty skin almost glowed in the room light, the irises of her green eyes like burning eneralds. Danielle's once dull blonde hair was now a magnificent, flowing golden waterfall that cascaded down her slim body. She was like the poster-child for pretties everywhere. Beside her right eye, golden swirls curled around and sparkled happily. Perfection in its greatest form.

"Is it too much?" Danielle asked self-consiously- as if a pretty could be self-conscious. Her voice sounded like the same old Danielle, just in a different body.

"No!" Kasie shouted excitedly, throwing her arms around her best friend. "I love it, it's amazing."

Danielle hugged her back, not seeming to care that she was hugging an ugly. From the hug, Kasie could feel Danielle's face break into a brilliant smile beside her. Pulling Kasie swiftly onto the bed, Danielle gracefully brought her legs up from off the floor and crossed them beneath her.

"I've missed you, K," Danielle frowned.

"I missed you too, D." At that revelation, Danielle's face lit up like the nightly fireworks in New Pretty Town. Of course Kasie had missed Danielle and Celia, they were, after all, her best friends in the world. She had wanted nothing more than to speak to them for a long time.

"Wait," Kasie paused for a moment, shocked at the situation. "Where's C?"

At that, Danielle's face fell. Her face transforming from happy to sad in less than half a second; even in sadness, her face held the strange pretty beauty.

"She doesn't want to see you." Danielle said quietly, almost regretfully. "C's changed a lot since the operation, K, and she won't even talk to _me_. She's too busy wrapped up in being a pretty."

"Oh." Kasie replied, her voice almost inaudible.

Kasie didn't blame Celia for not wanting to see her. Apparently, according to some of the other uglies, Kasie had changed since her two best friends turned pretty. No longer was the crazy-happy Kasie who enjoyed tricking and silly ugly things- she could have had fun without them. But without her friends, Kasie became a withdrawn crazy with detached emotions who was bored of the ugly lifestyle.

"How's Teague?"

Danielle stayed with Kasie for longer than a pretty normally would've liked to stay with an ugly. She asked about all of the uglies who hadn't turned pretty yet, and the teachers and if the food was still bad. It felt, for once in a long time, like Kasie was with her old friends again, her old ugly self just having fun. The only thing missing from the picture was Celia. Throughout Danielle's entire stay, Kasie had found herself mesmerized by Danielle's pretty movements and the exciting design on her face. It made her so much eager for the operation and wondered, still mesmerized, if the designs came in blue.

"So, I'll see you in two days?" Danielle asked, smiling.

"Of course you will." Kasie smiled back at her, not as radiantly, happy that the future was looking brighter.

With one graceful, fleeting hug, Danielle danced over to door and turned the handle. She appeared to be in thought as she held onto the handle, like she was pondering over something important to tell her. But then, as soon as the look appeared, it disappeared, leaving Danielle in the same animated expression as before. She smiled, her glossy pretty lips spreading across her face, and said once last thing before bouncing out of the door and closing it behind her.

"I can't wait for you to be pretty!"

Kasie sighed, setting her head down on the pillow and closing her eyes.

Neither could she.

**A/N: Hm, I don't normally like writing chapters this short, but I guess if they're shorter then that means chapters will come quicker! Yay! I'm currently rereading the trilogy (maybe with Extras) so I can just get as… I don't want to say authentic, but just so it will make more sense with the whole series.  
****  
****randomwriter94****: Aw, thank you! You have no idea how much that made my day. =] And, sadly, I'm not much for Extras either. Aya ticked me off.**


	3. Crash

**III. Crash**

The hoverboard effortlessly glided through the air, making Kasie's ugly body feel as light and feathery as a new pretty would have. It was a shock to her, being on a hoverboard after such a long absence from riding, and she was immediately regretting ever having listened to her brother. Teague's happy expression made her want to punch him in the face, doing as much damage as she could inflict on him. It wouldn't matter if she broke his entire face- the operation would fix that in next to no time.

For the past hours, she had stopped counting days, Kasie stuck primarily to her room, packing what she thought that she would need and preparing for life as a new pretty. When they measured her, she closed her eyes and imagined that the cool hands all over her body were those of someone helping her get ready for a pretty bash. The dress in her mind was long, lithe and golden, like the finest material a pretty would use. Then, when it was six hours until the surgery, Teague tapped on her door, not caring that it was two in the morning, demanding that she sneak out with him and enjoy one last ugly trick. He had said that tricking wasn't as fun after the operation, or, at least, not as thrilling.

Kasie could feel the ground rumbling slightly beneath her, feeling that she must have been close to a major metal. When she stuck to the city grid, it never made the peculiar rumble. She shrugged and sped up, thankful that her crash bracelets had been fully charged despite their being out of use. Beside her, Teague looked bored, but somehow excited by riding through the cool air. Kasie idly wondered how her brother had felt about the whole operation, in her opinion, he seemed like he could care less. Being pretty, it seemed, did not have such an effect on guys that it had girls.

They flew over the darkened crumblyville, far away from all the other areas, enjoying the recreational ride. From above, Kasie could spot her great-crumblies' house, and immediately wondered what they would think of her for being out on a hoverboard at such an early time. It seemed as though Teague was trying to keep them away from New Pretty Town because when they approached a crossing, he made a sharp turn and kept going.

As she followed Teague, Kasie glanced over at New Pretty Town as it faded into the distance, wondering what kind of trouble they were all getting into. Were they having a great party, or were they playing some game only for pretties? Kasie sighed again, but then smiled. Soon, she would be one of them, and she would join in on any of the games they were playing- and beat them on it. Yes, they would wish that Kasie Holcombe had never turned pretty.

"Where are we going?" Kasie asked, thoroughly confused at Teague's straight path. He smiled at her, showing his slightly crooked teeth, mousy hair blowing in the wind.

"I don't know," He said. "I've never been this way."

Kasie shrugged back at him, knowing sooner or later they would come to the divider. In school, they had taught about the Great War. The war had been between two groups of rusties that didn't ever get along, and they wiped out the rest of the world. They had said, to Kasie's sadness, that this was the only City left. Beyond the last crumbly houses, there was nothing.

Teague turned so quickly on his board that Kasie wasn't aware that he was doing anything, she looked at him and got ready to turn her board around, too. Her crash bracelets suddenly pulled her forward, throwing her off balance of her board and whipping her head violently forward. The board jerked ahead, throwing her body to the ground beneath it where she landed with a thud.

Kasie blinked, every part of her body stinging and throbbing. She was confused, but slightly aware of what happened. Her board knocked her off in less than two seconds. She made a painful expression and looked around, wondering how her board could just… throw her off of it. From her position, Kasie could see where her board had landed and cracked into two individual pieces. She couldn't have been more than a metre or so up, preferring to stick closer to the ground. How could the fall have broken her hoverboard?

Then, strangely, the place where her board was flickered as if it was one of those holograms her wallscreen could project. Kasie squeezed her eyes shut and then reopened them, unsure if she had imagined it or not. The farthest broken half of her hoverboard had disappeared, like it was never there to begin with. Whatever the flicker was, it had taken half of her hoverboard, and that made Kasie very confused.

Teague suddenly appeared beside her, his mouth open in a mixture of shock and confusion. A curious look came over his face and he reached his hand forward, placing his thumb and forefinger on something Kasie couldn't see.

"OW!" Kasie cried out, not so carefully jerking her head up to see what he had touched. She had fallen down before, scraped her knees, broken bones and other things. But never, in the history of her life, had she ever had a bone stick out of her body. The bone stuck out crudely from her leg and Teague's hand was hovering carefully above it.

Kasie swatted him away with her good arm. "Why would you touch it, moron?!" She yelled at him.

"I'm sorry, I've never seen that before." He shrugged and seemed to be checking to see what her other injuries were. She thought she heard him mumble something about "valuable life experiences" before he decided to shut up.

Sucking in a breath of cool air, Kasie was becoming more aware of her injuries. The pain was becoming greater as she began to regain feeling in her body, and she wondered how they were going to get her back to her dorm. She was suddenly aware of wetness around her head, and she carefully touched her head. The red of the blood that came away on her hand made her head throb and she closed her eyes.

"I didn't bring medspray." Teague said with a frown, seemingly trying to figure out what to do.

"Nice job." She complimented him bleakly, attempting to sit up on her elbow, but only ended up causing herself pain.

"What do we do?" Teague asked, still deep in thought, but probably needing help thinking up ideas. Kasie was sure that he was going to attempt to carry her back on his hoverboard, seeing as hers was no longer in working condition.

Kasie bit her lip, wondering if this would affect her from being pretty. She envisioned herself as the only pretty without a right leg, and she wanted to cry. Dejectedly, Kasie opened her mouth to respond to her brother, but her words were lost in the wind, and drowned out by a much more powerful voice.

"Don't worry," It said. "We can help you with that."

**A/N: Since I'm going aware for the weekend, I decided to update. Wee! =]**

**merlin effect****: I had no idea there was one, either! Then I found it, and boom. Merci. =]**

randomwriter94: Yay, I'm glad you like it. =]


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